The idea of privatizing libraries in Oregon made news a few months ago, and recentarticles in the Boston Globe are reporting that now two Massachusetts libraries are facing privatization.

I personally don't like the idea of privatizing a public library in general, but now it's a little more personal: one of the two libraries mentioned, the Tewksbury Public Library, is in the same consortium as my library.

It's also personal because on April 1st, both Tewksbury and Chelmsford residents are voting on tax overrides that will affect library funding and services. Tewksbury is in more dire straits than Chelmsford, but if our override doesn't pass, we will lose staff and be open fewer hours.

But back to the first Globe article. Towards then end, there is a quote from (I think) a Tewksbury resident:

The government cannot run anything that a business couldn't do better.

Are you kidding me? Would you feel better if your town had a privatized, for-profit, police force? And didn't fire departments start out as subscription-based, until communities realized that it was in their best interest to protect the entire community equally?

As far as library privatization goes, I am certainly not an expert on how it happens, but it sounds like a bad deal to me. One article states that privatized libraries get their funding from grants and taxes, but not fees - which along with aid money from the state, is exactly where our budget comes from now.

If a library is privatized, there is the possibility that it would no longer get aid money from the state. So for this to save money, they'd have to really cut costs, and it looks like the strategy is to not provide benefits to staff. Which means that library staff would go from "the best people available" to people who are able to work at a job with no insurance (this in a state where it is now illegal for residents not to have insurance).

And what happens to patrons? Being part of the same consortium means Chelmsford residents can freely use the Tewksbury library and its materials. If run by a for-profit private company, it makes sense that they would stop this practice, because no revenue is generated by sharing their materials with people that don't pay taxes in their town.

I'm sure they have a reasonable business model worked out, or else communities wouldn't seriously consider this. But I like the quote that closes the article:

The library's public, so everyone can use it.

Exactly. Remember a previous post where I was debating between answering the phone "May I help you?" and "Can I help you?" In a for-profit world, customer service loses priority to the financial bottom line, so I think I'd have to start answering the phone with this question: